@Retention(SOURCE) @Target({METHOD,CONSTRUCTOR,TYPE}) @Documented public @interface AccessForTesting

A marker annotation to indicate that a method, constructor or type is given increased access for testing purposes.

The most common usage of this annotation is to indicate that a method, which could have private access, is given package access so that it can be unit tested. Typically, unit tests are placed in the same package as the code they are testing. This allows tests to access package scope methods and types without having to make them public for testing purposes. However, it may be desirable to provide tests for private methods or private nested classes. The only way to accomplish this is to change those private methods and types to package access. Unfortunately, this makes it unclear to developers unfamiliar to the code whether these methods and types have been purposely made available for production use by other classes in the package. To clarify that the increased access is only for testing purposes, the AccessForTesting annotation can be applied to methods, constructors and types.

    @AccessForTesting
    String groupToPath(final String groupId) {
        return groupId.replace('.', '/');
    }

In the above example, the groupToPath method could have private access but has been given package access so that it can be tested. The application of the AccessForTesting annotation makes this intention clear.

Annotation Interface AccessForTesting